An electronic device can take many forms such as, for example, a tablet computing device along the lines of an iPad™, a portable communication device such as an iPhone™, or a portable media player, such as an iPod™ each manufactured by Apple Inc of Cupertino Calif. Being inherently portable in nature, these devices can be sized to be both easily carried about and operated without the need to be placed upon a stationary surface such as desk or table. For example, with regards to the iPad™ (although somewhat larger than either the iPod™ or iPhone™), a user can easily hold the iPad™ in one hand while providing input commands at a touch sensitive display using the other hand. Although small in size, these devices can possess prodigious processing resources capable of providing vast amounts of information that for the most part are presented at a display having limited displayable area.
It is this dichotomy between the potential large amount of information made available by the processing resources of the small form factor electronic device and the comparatively small amount of displayable area on which to present this information that can lead to situations where both the display and a user are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. This is particularly salient due to the fact that the display by its limited size can only present limited portions of the available information at a time requiring the user to resort to ad hoc and mostly inefficient techniques for managing the visual information.
Therefore, a system, method, and apparatus for managing visual information presented by a small form factor electronic device having limited display resources are desired.